Demos

There was nothing for it but to leap on to the very benches and yell as long as your voice would hold out.

After that the meeting was mere exuberance of mutual congratulations. Mr. Cullen was understood to be moving the usual vote of thanks, but even his vocal organs strove hard for little purpose. Daniel Dabbs had never made a speech in his life, but excitement drove him on the honourable post of seconder. The chairman endeavoured to make certain announcements; then the assembly broke up. The estrade was invaded; everybody wished to shake hands with Mutimer. Mr. Cullen tried to obtain Richard’s attention to certain remarks of value; failing, he went off with a scowl. Mr. Cowes attempted to button-hole the popular hero; finding Richard conversing with someone else at the same time, he turned away with a covert sneer. The former of the two worthies had desired to insist upon every member of the Union becoming a teetotaller; the latter wished to say that he thought it would be well if a badge of temperance were henceforth worn by Unionists. On turning away, each glanced at the clock and hurried his step.

In a certain dark street not very far from the lecture-room Mr. Cullen rose on tip-toe at the windows of a dull little public-house. A Unionist was standing at the bar; Mr. Cullen hurried on, into a street yet darker. Again he tip-toed at a window. The glimpse reassured him; he passed quickly through the doorway, stepped to the bar, gave an order. Then he turned, and behold, on a seat just under the window sat Mr. Cowes, & short pipe in his mouth, a smoking tumbler held on his knee. The supporters of total abstinence nodded to each other, with a slight lack of spontaneity. Mr. Cullen, having secured his own tumbler, came by his comrade’s side.

‘Deal o’ fine talk to wind up with,’ he remarked tentatively.

‘He means what he says,’ returned the other gravely.

‘Oh yes,’ Mr. Cullen hastened to admit. ‘Mutimer means what he says! Only the way of saying it, I meant—I’ve got a bit of a sore throat.’

‘So have I. After that there hot room.’

They nodded at each other sympathetically. Mr. Cullen filled a little black pipe.

‘Got alight?’

Mr. Cowes offered the glowing bowl of his own clay; they put their noses together and blew a cloud.

‘Of course there’s no saying what time ‘ll do,’ observed tall Mr. Cowes, sententiously, after a gulp of warm liquor.

‘No more there is,’ assented short Mr. Cullen with half a wink.

‘It’s easy to promise.’

‘As easy as tellin’ lies.’

Another silence.

‘Don’t suppose you and me ‘ll get much of it,’ Mr. Cowes ventured to observe.

‘About as much as you can put in your eye without winkin’,’ was the other’s picturesque agreement.

They talked till closing time.

CHAPTER VII

One morning late in June, Hubert Eldon passed through the gates of Wanley Manor and walked towards the village. It was the first time since his illness that he had left the grounds on foot. He was very thin, and had an absent, troubled look; the natural cheerfulness of youth’s convalescence seemed altogether lacking in him.

From a rising point of the road, winding between the Manor and Wanley, a good view of the valley offered itself; here Hubert paused, leaning a little on his stick, and let his eyes dwell upon the prospect. A year ago he had stood here and enjoyed the sweep of meadows between Stanbury Hill and the wooded slope opposite, the orchard-patches, the flocks along the margin of the little river. To-day he viewed a very different scene. Building of various kinds was in progress in the heart of the vale; a great massive chimney was rising to completion, and about it stood a number of sheds. Beyond was to be seen the commencement of a street of small houses, promising infinite ugliness in a little space; the soil over a considerable area was torn up and trodden into mud. A number of men were at work; carts and waggons and trucks were moving about. In truth, the benighted valley was waking up and donning the true nineteenth-century livery.

The young man’s face, hitherto thoughtfully sad, changed to an expression of bitterness; he muttered what seemed to be angry and contemptuous words, then averted his eyes and walked on. He entered the village street and passed along it for some distance, his fixed gaze appearing studiously to avoid the people who stood about or walked by him. There was a spot of warm colour on his cheeks; he held himself very upright and had a painfully self-conscious air.

He stopped before a dwelling-house, rang the bell, and made inquiry whether Mr. Mutimer was at home. The reply being affirmative, he followed the servant up to the first floor. His name was announced at the door of a sitting-room, and he entered.

Two men were conversing in the room. One sat at the table with a sheet of paper before him, sketching a rough diagram and scribbling notes; this was Richard Mutimer. He was dressed in a light tweed suit; his fair moustache and beard were trimmed, and the hand which rested on the table was no longer that of a daily-grimed mechanic. His linen was admirably starched; altogether he had a very fresh and cool appearance. His companion was astride on a chair, his arms resting on the back, a pipe in his mouth. This man was somewhat older than Mutimer; his countenance indicated shrewdness and knowledge of the world. He was dark and well-featured, his glossy black hair was parted in the middle, his moustache of the cut called imperial, his beard short and peaked. He wore a canvas jacket, a white waistcoat and knickerbockers; at his throat a blue necktie fluttered loose. When Hubert’s name was announced by the servant, this gentleman stopped midway in a sentence, took his pipe from his lips, and looked to the door with curiosity.

Mutimer rose and addressed his visitor easily indeed, but not discourteously.

‘How do you do, Mr. Eldon? I’m glad to see that you are so much better. Will you sit down? I think you know Mr. Rodman, at all events by name?’

Hubert assented by gesture. He had come prepared for disagreeable things in this his first meeting with Mutimer, but the honour of an introduction to the latter’s friends had not been included in his anticipations. Mr. Rodman had risen and bowed slightly. His smile carried a disagreeable suggestion from which Mutimer’s behaviour was altogether free; he rather seemed to enjoy the situation.

For a moment there was silence and embarrassment. Richard overcame the difficulty.

‘Come and dine with me to-night, will you?’ he said to Rodman. ‘Here, take this plan with you, and think it over.’

‘Pray don’t let me interfere with your business,’ interposed Hubert, with scrupulous politeness. ‘I could see you later, Mr. Mutimer.’

‘No, no; Rodman and I have done for the present,’ said Mutimer, cheerfully. ‘By-the-by,’ he added, as his right-hand man moved to the door, ‘don’t forget to drop a line to Slater and Smith. And, I say, if Hogg turns up before two o’clock, send him here; I’ll be down with you by half-past.’

Mr. Rodman gave an ‘All right,’ nodded to Hubert, who paid no attention, and took his departure.

‘You’ve had a long pull of it,’ Richard began, as he took his chair again, and threw his legs into an easy position. ‘Shall I close the windows? Maybe you don’t like the draught.’

‘Thank you; I feel no draught.’

The working man had the advantage as yet. Hubert in vain tried to be at ease, whilst Mutimer was quite himself, and not ungraceful in his assumption of equality. For one thing, Hubert could not avoid a comparison between his own wasted frame and the other’s splendid physique; it heightened the feeling of antagonism which possessed him in advance, and provoked the haughtiness he had resolved to guard against. The very lineaments of the men foretold mutual antipathy. Hubert’s extreme delicacy of feature was the outward expression of a character so compact of subtleties and refinements, of high prejudice and jealous sensibility, of spiritual egoism and all-pervading fastidiousness, that it was impossible for him not to regard with repugnance a man who represented the combative principle, even the triumph, of the uncultured classes. He was no hidebound aristocrat; the liberal tendencies of his intellect led him to scorn the pageantry of long-descended fools as strongly as he did the blind image-breaking of the mob; but in a case of personal relations temperament carried it over judgment in a very high-handed way. Youth and disappointment weighed in the scale of unreason. Mutimer, on the other hand, though fortune helped him to forbearance, saw, or believed he saw, the very essence of all he most hated in this proud-eyed representative of a county family. His own rough-sculptured comeliness corresponded to the vigour and practicality and zeal of a nature which cared nothing for form and all for substance; the essentials of life were to him the only things in life, instead of, as to Hubert Eldon, the mere brute foundation of an artistic super structure. Richard read clearly enough the sentiments with which his visitor approached him; who that is the object of contempt does not readily perceive it? His way of revenging himself was to emphasise a tone of good fellowship, to make it evident how well he could afford to neglect privileged insolence. In his heart he triumphed over the disinherited aristocrat; outwardly he was civil, even friendly.

Hubert had made this call with a special purpose.

‘I am charged by Mrs. Eldon,’ he began, ‘to thank you for the courtesy you have shown her during my illness. My own thanks likewise I hope you will accept. We have caused you, I fear, much inconvenience.’

Richard found himself envying the form and tone of this deliverance; he gathered his beard in his hands and gave it a tug.

‘Not a bit of it,’ he replied. ‘I am very comfortable here. A bedroom and a place for work, that’s about all I want.’

Hubert barely smiled. He wondered whether the mention of work was meant to suggest comparisons. He hastened to add—

‘On Monday we hope to leave the Manor.’

‘No need whatever for hurry,’ observed Mutimer, good-humouredly. ‘Please tell Mrs. Eldon that I hope she will take her own time.’ On reflection this seemed rather an ill-chosen phrase; he bettered it. ‘I should be very sorry if she inconvenienced herself on my account.’

‘Confound the fellow’s impudence!’ was Hubert’s mental comment. ‘He plays the forbearing landlord.’

His spoken reply was: ‘It is very kind of you. I foresee no difficulty in completing the removal on Monday.’

In view of Mutimer’s self-command, Hubert began to be aware that his own constraint might carry the air of petty resentment Fear of that drove him upon a topic he would rather have left alone.

‘You are changing the appearance of the valley,’ he said, veiling by his tone the irony which was evident in his choice of words.

Richard glanced at him, then walked to the window, with his hands in his pockets, and gave himself the pleasure of a glimpse of the furnace-chimney above the opposite houses. He laughed.

‘I hope to change it a good deal more. In a year or two you won’t know the place.’

‘I fear not.’

Mutimer glanced again at his visitor.

‘Why do you fear?’ he asked, with less command of his voice.

‘I of course understand your point of view. Personally, I prefer nature.’

Hubert endeavoured to smile, that his personal preferences might lose something of their edge.

‘You prefer nature,’ Mutimer repeated, coming back to his chair, on the seat of which he rested a foot. ‘Well, I can’t say that I do. The Wanley Iron Works will soon mean bread to several hundred families; how many would the grass support?’

‘To be sure,’ assented Hubert, still smiling.

‘You are aware,’ Mutimer proceeded to ask, ‘that this is not a speculation for my own profit?’

‘I have heard something of your scheme. I trust it will be appreciated.’

‘I dare say it will be—by those who care anything about the welfare of the people.’

Eldon rose; he could not trust himself to continue the dialogue. He had expected to meet a man of coarser grain; Mutimer’s intelligence made impossible the civil condescension which would have served with a boor, and Hubert found the temptation to pointed utterance all the stronger for the dangers it involved.

‘I will drop you a note,’ he said, ‘to let you know as soon as the house is empty.’

‘Thank you.’

They had not shaken hands at meeting, nor did they now. Each felt relieved when out of the other’s sight.

Hubert turned out of the street into a road which would lead him to the church, whence there was a field-path back to the Manor. Walking with his eyes on the ground he did not perceive the tall, dark figure that approached him as he drew near to the churchyard gate. Mr. Wyvern had been conducting a burial; he had just left the vestry and was on his way to the vicarage, which stood five minutes’ walk from the church. Himself unperceived, he scrutinised the young man until he stood face to face with him; his deep-voiced greeting caused Hubert to look up’ with a start.

‘I’m very glad to see you walking,’ said the clergyman.

He took Hubert’s hand and held it paternally in both his own. Eldon seemed affected with a sudden surprise; as he met the large gaze his look showed embarrassment.

‘You remember me?’ Mr. Wyvern remarked, his wonted solemnity lightened by the gleam of a brief smile. Looking closely into his face was like examining a map in relief; you saw heights and plains, the intersection of multitudinous valleys, river-courses with their tributaries. It was the visage of a man of thought and character. His eyes spoke of late hours and the lamp; beneath each was a heavy pocket of skin, wrinkling at its juncture with the cheek. His teeth were those of an incessant smoker, and, in truth, you could seldom come near him without detecting the odour of tobacco. Despite the amplitude of his proportions, there was nothing ponderous about him; the great head was finely formed, and his limbs must at one time have been as graceful as they were muscular.

‘Is this accident,’ Hubert asked; ‘or did you know me at the time?’

‘Accident, pure accident. Will you walk to the vicarage with me?’

They paced side by side.

‘Mrs. Eldon profits by the pleasant weather, I trust?’ the vicar observed, with grave courtesy.

‘Thank you, I think she does. I shall be glad when she is settled in her new home.’

They approached the door of the vicarage in silence. Entering Mr. Wyvern led the way to his study. When he had taken a seat, he appeared to forget himself for a moment, and played with the end of his bean.

Hubert showed impatient curiosity.

‘You found me there by chance that morning?’ he began.

The clergyman returned to the present. His elbows on either arm of his round chair, he sat leaning forward, thoughtfully gazing at his companion.

‘By chance,’ he replied. ‘I sleep badly; so it happened that I was abroad shortly after daybreak. I was near the edge of the wood when I heard a pistol-shot. I waited for the second.’

‘We fired together,’ Hubert remarked.

‘Ah! It seemed to me one report. Well, as I stood listening, there came out from among the trees a man who seemed in a hurry. He was startled at finding himself face to face with me, but didn’t stop; he said something rapidly in French that I failed to catch, pointed back into the wood, and hastened off.’

‘We had no witnesses,’ put in Hubert; ‘and both aimed our best. I wonder he sent you to look for me.’

‘A momentary weakness, no doubt,’ rejoined the vicar drily. I made my way among the trees and found you lying there, unconscious. I made some attempt to stop the blood-flow, then picked you up; it seemed better, on the whole, than leaving you on the wet grass an indefinite time. Your overcoat was on the ground; as I took hold of it, two letters fell from the pocket. I made no scruple about reading the addresses, and was astonished to find that one was to Mrs. Eldon, at Wanley Manor, Wanley being the place where I was about to live on my return to England. I took it for granted that you were Mrs. Eldon’s son. The other letter, as you know, was to a lady at a hotel in the town.’

Hubert nodded.

‘And you went to her as soon as you left me?’

‘After hearing from the doctor that there was no immediate danger.—The letters, I suppose, would have announced your death?’

Hubert again inclined his head. The imperturbable gravity of the speaker had the effect of imposing self-command on the young man; whose sensitive cheeks showed what was going on within.

‘Will you tell me of your interview with her?’ he asked.

‘It was of the briefest; my French is not fluent.’

‘But she speaks English well.’

‘Probably her distress led her to give preference to her native tongue. She was anxious to go to you immediately, and I told her where you lay. I made inquiries next day, and found that she was still giving you her care. As you were doing well, and I had to be moving homewards, I thought it better to leave without seeing you again. The innkeeper had directions to telegraph to me if there was a change for the worse.’

‘My pocket-book saved me,’ remarked Hubert, touching his side.

Mr. Wyvern drew in his lips.

‘Came between that ready-stamped letter and Wanley Manor,’ was his comment.

There was a brief silence.

‘You allow me a question?’ the vicar resumed. ‘It is with reference to the French lady.’

‘I think you have every right to question me.’

‘Oh no! It does not concern the events prior to your—accident.’ Mr. Wyvern savoured the word. ‘How long did she remain in attendance upon you?’

‘A short time—two day—I did not need—’

Mr. Wyvern motioned with his hand, kindly.

‘Then I was not mistaken,’ he said, averting his eyes for the first time, ‘in thinking that I saw her in Paris.’

‘In Paris?’ Hubert repeated, with a poor affectation of indifference.

‘I made a short stay before crossing. I had business at a bank one day; as I stood before the counter a gentleman entered and took a place beside me. A second look assured me that he was the man who met me at the edge of the wood that morning. I suppose he remembered me, for he looked away and moved from me. I left the bank, and found an open carriage waiting at the door. In it sat the lady of whom we speak. I took a turn along the pavement and back again. The Frenchman entered the carriage; they drove away.’

Hubert’s eyes were veiled; he breathed through his nostrils. Again there was silence.

‘Mr. Eldon,’ resumed the vicar, ‘I was a man of the world before I became a Churchman; you will notice that I affect no professional tone in speaking with you, and it is because I know that anything of the kind would only alienate you. It appeared to me that chance had made me aware of something it might concern you to hear. I know nothing of the circumstances of the case, merely offer you the facts.’

‘I thank you,’ was Hubert’s reply in an undertone.

‘It impressed me, that letter ready stamped for Wanley Manor. I thought of it again after the meeting in Paris.’

‘I understand you. Of course I could explain the necessity. It would be useless.’

‘Quite. But experience is not, or should not be, useless, especially when commented on by one who has very much of it behind him.’

Hubert stood up. His mind was in a feverishly active state, seeming to follow several lines of thought simultaneously. Among other things, he was wondering how it was that throughout this conversation he had been so entirely passive. He had never found himself under the influence of so strong a personality, exerted too in such a strangely quiet way.

‘What are your plans—your own plans?’ Mr. Wyvern inquired.

‘I have none.’

‘Forgive me;—there will be no material difficulties?’

‘None; I have four hundred a year.’

‘You have not graduated yet, I believe?’

‘No. But I hardly think I can go back to school.’

‘Perhaps not. Well, turn things over. I should like to hear from you.’

‘You shall.’

Hubert continued his walk to the Manor. Before the entrance stood two large furniture-vans; the doorway was littered with materials of packing, and the hall was full of objects in disorder, footsteps made a hollow resonance in all parts of the house, for everywhere the long wonted conditions of sound were disturbed. The library was already dismantled; here he could close the door and walk about without fear of intrusion. He would have preferred to remain in the open air, but a summer shower had just begun as he reached the house. He could not sit still; the bare floor of the large room met his needs.

His mind’s eye pictured a face which a few months ago had power to lead him whither it willed, which had in fact led him through strange scenes, as far from the beaten road of a college curriculum as well could be. It was a face of foreign type, Jewish possibly, most unlike that ideal of womanly charm kept in view by one who seeks peace and the heart’s home. Hubert had entertained no thought of either. The romance which most young men are content to enjoy in printed pages he had acted out in his life. He had lived through a glorious madness, as unlike the vulgar oat-sowing of the average young man of wealth as the latest valse on a street-organ is unlike a passionate dream of Chopin. However unworthy the object of his frenzy—and perhaps one were as worthy as another—the pursuit had borne him through an atmosphere of fire, tempering him for life, marking him for ever from plodders of the dusty highway. A reckless passion is a patent of nobility. Whatever existence had in store for him henceforth, Hubert could feel that he had lived.

An hour’s communing with memory was brought to an end by the ringing of the luncheon-bell. Since his illness Hubert had taken meals with his mother in her own sitting-room. Thither he now repaired.

Mrs. Eldon had grown older in appearance since that evening of her son’s return. Of course she had discovered the cause of his illness, and the incessant torment of a great fear had been added to what she suffered from the estrangement between the boy and herself. Her own bodily weakness had not permitted her to nurse him; she had passed days and nights in anguish of expectancy. At one time it had been life or death. If he died, what life would be hers through the brief delay to which she could look forward?

Once more she had him by her side, but the moral distance between them was nothing lessened. Mrs. Eldon’s pride would not allow her to resume the conversation which had ended so hopelessly for her, and she interpreted Hubert’s silence in the saddest sense. Now they were about to be parted again. A house had been taken for her at Agworth, three miles away; in her state of health she could not quit the neighbourhood of the few old friends whom she still saw. But Hubert would necessarily go into the world to seek some kind of career. No hope shone for her in the prospect.

Whilst the servant waited on them at luncheon, mother and son exchanged few words. Afterwards, Mrs. Eldon had her chair moved to the window, where she could see the garden greenery.

‘I called on Mr. Mutimer,’ Hubert said, standing near her. Through the meal he had cast frequent glances at her pale, nobly-lined countenance, as if something had led him to occupy his thoughts with her. He looked at her in the same way now.

‘Did you? How did he impress you?’

‘He is not quite the man I had expected; more civilised. I should suppose he is the better kind of artisan. He talks with a good deal of the working-class accent, of course, but not like a wholly uneducated man.’

‘His letter, you remember, was anything but illiterate. I feel I ought to ask him to come and see me before we leave.’

‘The correspondence surely suffices.’

‘You expressed my thanks?’

‘Conscientiously.’

‘I see you found the interview rather difficult, Hubert.’

‘How could it be otherwise? The man is well enough, of his kind, but the kind is detestable.’

‘Did he try to convert you to Socialism?’ asked his mother, smiling in her sad way.

‘I imagine he discerned the hopelessness of such an under taking. We had a little passage of arms,—quite within the bounds of civility. Shall I tell you how I felt in talking with him? I seemed to be holding a dialogue with the twentieth century, and you may think what that means.’

‘Ah, it’s a long way off, Hubert.’